McLaren are now seeking divorce from an unhappy engine deal, and it seems Red Bull have power of veto, but feel another engine customer of the standard of McLaren can only help get better engines.

How revealing is this considering that not very long ago, Red Bull was in a dire situation and seeking divorce from their engine contract and looked to become an additional customer for Honda alongside McLaren, but McLaren vetoed the deal.

McLaren said 'no' to prevent another customer have access to their engine. A strong competitor with the same engine was not on for McLaren. Egotistical McLaren were thinking they could win the championship not on strength of their car design, but on the strength of their outsourced engine!

I remember at the time thinking 'look at where you are and all the teams you have to leapfrog before your biggest concern would be Red Bull with the same engine!' But the toxic culture of McLaren was 'we don't share with anyone'.

The result of that decision was Honda having one high profile customer in place of two, effectively halving the testing permitted and slowing the rate of development.

It is possible that twice the budget from having two customers and twice the testing and race info available may have made no difference. I suggest it is highly likely it would have made a difference.

Complaining that McLaren vetoed red bull but no mention of Ferrari and Mercedes refusing to supply McLaren now...I agree extra teams would be a bonus for Honda, but McLaren were burnt when Brawn got Mercedes engines which led to them not being the main team. It's understandable they didn't want red bull coming in and potentially stealing the works engine!Aside from this they should have been doing their best to get another team on board, like this year if they weren't messing around with changing suppliers Sauber would most likely have joined for next year.

And with regards to the question, the improvement of the PU is more linked to Honda getting the likes of Ilmor involved, more milage would help but without the extra expertise I don't think they'd develop fast enough.I've not voted as I'm in a grey area between the choices

Did anyone else see the interview with Horner during the rained off qualifying? He said Red Bull can veto who Renault supply due to a clause put in when Ron Dennis blocked Red Bull from being able to receive Mercedes engines.

He did say when it was but I can't fully remember, think it was pre 2010 though. Would be kinda funny if McLaren were blocked by Red Bull due to a clause basically added to get back at Ron Dennis all those years ago.

Last edited by Black_Flag_11 on Mon Sep 04, 2017 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Did anyone else hear Ted Kravitz say in his post race segment that if McLaren dump Honda then Honda may well sue McLaren for breach of contract? If they do then I think McLaren would have good grounds to counter sue Honda for not providing an engine that is fit for purpose for 3 years.

McLaren are now seeking divorce from an unhappy engine deal, and it seems Red Bull have power of veto, but feel another engine customer of the standard of McLaren can only help get better engines.

How revealing is this considering that not very long ago, Red Bull was in a dire situation and seeking divorce from their engine contract and looked to become an additional customer for Honda alongside McLaren, but McLaren vetoed the deal.

McLaren said 'no' to prevent another customer have access to their engine. A strong competitor with the same engine was not on for McLaren. Egotistical McLaren were thinking they could win the championship not on strength of their car design, but on the strength of their outsourced engine!

I remember at the time thinking 'look at where you are and all the teams you have to leapfrog before your biggest concern would be Red Bull with the same engine!' But the toxic culture of McLaren was 'we don't share with anyone'.

The result of that decision was Honda having one high profile customer in place of two, effectively halving the testing permitted and slowing the rate of development.

It is possible that twice the budget from having two customers and twice the testing and race info available may have made no difference. I suggest it is highly likely it would have made a difference.

It wouldn't have made a difference with the first engine as it was just totally adverse to lean burn. Honda wouldn't be able to supply enough parts this year for a customer and would have been in a lot of trouble.

Honda said logistically they were only ready to supply another team from this year on wards as well, the approach from RB/STR was never actually official in the first place, frying pan and fire springs to mind. Ron just told Bernie he would do the same as Mercedes and Ferrari and block RB if they tried.

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Did anyone else hear Ted Kravitz say in his post race segment that if McLaren dump Honda then Honda may well sue McLaren for breach of contract? If they do then I think McLaren would have good grounds to counter sue Honda for not providing an engine that is fit for purpose for 3 years.

I heard that. Though i think what he said is extreme. They are in negotiation to prevent just that. Technically Honda wont be able to sue in the first place if there was a performance clause in the contract so i dont think there will be a counter sue if it does come to that

But yes Mclaren has made alot of strategic mistakes, i hope braking up with Honda does not come back to bite them in a few years

Although Honda were not set up to receive data from multiple sources, if they had, that extra data definitely would have led to a quicker development cycle. That is why teams run two cars, to maximize the amount of data collected. This is just simple Engineering 101.

As for the politics? Although team principals may smile at each other, shake hands, and be cordial. they know that their teams are locked in a death match with their competitors. They scrutinize each other, they protest, they do everything possible to hurt any other team's chances. So if this kind of opportunity was handed to Horner, it is not even a personal option, exercise veto and kick them when they are down.

are McLaren just changing to Renault, to keep Alonso happy because it seems a completely pointless and financially stupid thing to do

And all this ignores the very real possibility that Red Bull will have a better chassis, so McLaren would be (at best) the second fastest team with a Renault engine. Which would most likely be still behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

No, I believe Honda is too incompetent to benefit from more data, as they proved by ruining a perfectly good engine from the end of 2016 into 2017. The only difference is they'd have made a joke of Red Bull as well.

No, I believe Honda is too incompetent to benefit from more data, as they proved by ruining a perfectly good engine from the end of 2016 into 2017. The only difference is they'd have made a joke of Red Bull as well.

They changed concept as their previous engine couldn't incorporate the lean burn, or at least incorporate it properly. They had no choice but to chase this new concept as they would never be competitive without and have a chance with it.Honda are sticking to this concept next year while Renault are rumoured to be changing theirs, good chance they'll 'ruin a perfectly good engine' too.Also although the Honda was improving last year I still don't think it was up to perfectly good engine level!

Personally think ditching Honda for Renault would be a mistake, though it's not my choice so let's see what happens.

McLaren are leaving works engine Honda and going to customer engine Renault with a huge loss of funds and a loss of security that Honda brings and what happened to you can't win a championship with a customer team

its not even that the Renault engine is much better anyway ,and McLaren are so plzd with themselves because Alonso will stay with the Renault engine , but not with Honda engine , so has Alonso taken a big paycut , now that McLaren have an engine bill to pay

I would love to hear ron Dennis's view on this and particulary the funding side and future of the team

No, I believe Honda is too incompetent to benefit from more data, as they proved by ruining a perfectly good engine from the end of 2016 into 2017. The only difference is they'd have made a joke of Red Bull as well.

They changed concept as their previous engine couldn't incorporate the lean burn, or at least incorporate it properly. They had no choice but to chase this new concept as they would never be competitive without and have a chance with it.Honda are sticking to this concept next year while Renault are rumoured to be changing theirs, good chance they'll 'ruin a perfectly good engine' too.Also although the Honda was improving last year I still don't think it was up to perfectly good engine level!

Personally think ditching Honda for Renault would be a mistake, though it's not my choice so let's see what happens.

Red Bull Honda 2019 champions?...

I read a Renault interview where they said next year's engine will be an evolution of what they have now i.e. same concept. Dont be too surprised then if Red Bull and McLaren replace Ferrari and Mercedes at the top

No, I believe Honda is too incompetent to benefit from more data, as they proved by ruining a perfectly good engine from the end of 2016 into 2017. The only difference is they'd have made a joke of Red Bull as well.

They changed concept as their previous engine couldn't incorporate the lean burn, or at least incorporate it properly. They had no choice but to chase this new concept as they would never be competitive without and have a chance with it.Honda are sticking to this concept next year while Renault are rumoured to be changing theirs, good chance they'll 'ruin a perfectly good engine' too.Also although the Honda was improving last year I still don't think it was up to perfectly good engine level!

Personally think ditching Honda for Renault would be a mistake, though it's not my choice so let's see what happens.

Red Bull Honda 2019 champions?...

I read a Renault interview where they said next year's engine will be an evolution of what they have now i.e. same concept. Dont be too surprised then if Red Bull and McLaren replace Ferrari and Mercedes at the top

Is the Merc and Ferrari not going to evolve also? From a higher start point

Sure, but it sounds like a strong update if they couldn't finish it this season. The point I was making was that no-one is really looking at the potential upside of this switch so I just floated that radically different to the current status quo scenario for conversational balance.

Ron must be laughing like crazy. At the same time, he is seeing all his work go down the drain.

McLaren's problems over the last decade stem from Ron's mismanagement.

I'm afraid I must agree. Although Ron's management style did bring success previously leaders must adapt to changing realities or they and their organizations suffer. Clearly no one had the stones to say that they agreed with the need for a works engine to win a WCC but a totally untested, unproven supplier unwilling to work in the UK or accept help from outside the org was HEAVILY laden with risk. Well, that risk never managed or mitigated and it realised pretty darn quickly init.

"Ron, you're bleedin' bonkers" is literally all they had to say. Ended up with him losing is seat at both the race team and the company.

McLaren are leaving works engine Honda and going to customer engine Renault with a huge loss of funds and a loss of security that Honda brings and what happened to you can't win a championship with a customer team

its not even that the Renault engine is much better anyway ,and McLaren are so plzd with themselves because Alonso will stay with the Renault engine , but not with Honda engine , so has Alonso taken a big paycut , now that McLaren have an engine bill to pay

I would love to hear ron Dennis's view on this and particulary the funding side and future of the team

Did anyone else see the interview with Horner during the rained off qualifying? He said Red Bull can veto who Renault supply due to a clause put in when Ron Dennis blocked Red Bull from being able to receive Mercedes engines.

He did say when it was but I can't fully remember, think it was pre 2010 though. Would be kinda funny if McLaren were blocked by Red Bull due to a clause basically added to get back at Ron Dennis all those years ago.

It would, but | reckon RB will be rubbing their hands together at this. Sets them up for a no-risk trial towards becoming a Works team and allowing them to potentially move away from Renault, which hasn't been performing to the standards they want

McLaren are leaving works engine Honda and going to customer engine Renault with a huge loss of funds and a loss of security that Honda brings and what happened to you can't win a championship with a customer team

its not even that the Renault engine is much better anyway ,and McLaren are so plzd with themselves because Alonso will stay with the Renault engine , but not with Honda engine , so has Alonso taken a big paycut , now that McLaren have an engine bill to pay

I would love to hear ron Dennis's view on this and particulary the funding side and future of the team

Ron must be laughing like crazy. At the same time, he is seeing all his work go down the drain.

McLaren's problems over the last decade stem from Ron's mismanagement.

I'm afraid I must agree. Although Ron's management style did bring success previously leaders must adapt to changing realities or they and their organizations suffer. Clearly no one had the stones to say that they agreed with the need for a works engine to win a WCC but a totally untested, unproven supplier unwilling to work in the UK or accept help from outside the org was HEAVILY laden with risk. Well, that risk never managed or mitigated and it realised pretty darn quickly init.

"Ron, you're bleedin' bonkers" is literally all they had to say. Ended up with him losing is seat at both the race team and the company.

I understand your point of view, but I for one I am evaluating this from my own business experience. What I mostly learned, is that especially in highly competitive environments you have ups and downs.

More important, you have to do things differently to get that last edge. If you always do what others are doing, you will end up with the same results, or have to be way better to succeed.

In F1 I have seen cycles, a development phase, a winning phase, a mediocre phase. It happend to Ferrari, it happend toMclaren, it happend to Redbull. You can't be winning all the time, it is nearly impossible. But you also need PATIENCE. A lot of it.

Doing things differently let's you try things and expand experience. This is the approach I loved about Ron.

I am not saying this is guaranteed to bring success, but it worked for Mclaren in the last 30 years.

So while I do agree with your points, an untested supplier etc, sometimes you have to do it differently. I have no doubt Honda will get it right eventually. They don't need a monster of an engine, they just need a decent engine. It's all a matter of how long you want to wait.

Late 2015, Red Bull desperately wanted to leave Renault and had approached Honda, but reports are that McLaren Vetoed Honda supplying Red Bull.

Sharing an engine supplier with a competitive team was unthinkable!

Now, two years later, McLaren are desperate and will finally share an engine supplier with Red Bull.

To me, back in 2015, the thinking that 'we cannot share' - rather than 'we need to do something different to be competitive with Mercedes and Ferrari' was the sign of a non-cooperative culture at McLaren. Unless that culture has changed sharing an engine supplier now will still be a problem.

McLaren are leaving works engine Honda and going to customer engine Renault with a huge loss of funds and a loss of security that Honda brings and what happened to you can't win a championship with a customer team

its not even that the Renault engine is much better anyway ,and McLaren are so plzd with themselves because Alonso will stay with the Renault engine , but not with Honda engine , so has Alonso taken a big paycut , now that McLaren have an engine bill to pay

I would love to hear ron Dennis's view on this and particulary the funding side and future of the team

It is possible that twice the budget from having two customers and twice the testing and race info available may have made no difference. I suggest it is highly likely it would have made a difference.

I've mentioned this a lot.

The decision to split from Merc didn't come soon enough in my view. Honda needed more time to generally build an F1 engine. This was proved by not just the lack of BHP in it's first race but the fact Mclaren looked like their car wasn't built properly around it.

Still.. McLaren can only blame them selves. They should have signed up to Merc (even in their second rate engine) for 3 years so they could work alongside Honda for future planning. I work in a tech job and my predecessor was forced to switch from one system to another in a very short time - guess what? it failed, caused a nightmare and should not have been done.

I find it weird that only now have people fully given up on Honda. Taken 3 years of nightmares to finally say enough is enough. The engine probably needs 2 more years at least but has any team like Mclaren got that time? financially? That's two years at least of fighting for scraps which means nothing.

First off, Mercedes seems to have done a pretty good job making a fairly good engine for the first year with no testing at all. Ferrari got the hang of the engine through a winter with no testing.

We have heard too many scare stories of how the Japanese have been working on this, refusing to go out of shop seeking information, refusing outside help, and messing up all kinds of issues through very Japanese, but obscure for anyone else, ways of communication.

I fear the change needed was more of substance than of quantity, even if quantity wouldn't have hurt.

As we keep hearing, Honda are in it to learn stuff. Where as say Renault would bring in a guy from Merc with the knowledge, Honda are making home grown. This is going to be slower and there are going to be mistakes, because the guy that made the mistake in on a different engine is not there to tell them. This is part of why it is no good Honda just flooding the benches with people doing stuff, because it does not get into the learning tree from the right place.

Once the DO know what they are doing, things should come along leaps and bounds, but just like your kid making a cart, what seems like a good idea sometimes falls off when you get on it to ride. They remember this next time (both of them ) and understand why it happened and next time can make a better one than the kid who did what Dad said was good.

Honda are going to have lots of problems, but know why they have them (well, maybe ) and make an better engine so Red bull can win the championship in 2020

Did anyone else hear Ted Kravitz say in his post race segment that if McLaren dump Honda then Honda may well sue McLaren for breach of contract? If they do then I think McLaren would have good grounds to counter sue Honda for not providing an engine that is fit for purpose for 3 years.

And Honda's 'proof' that they delivered what was promised is Alanso's Fastest Race Lap at Spa! One lap does not, a race, make, however, it does sharpen a lawyers argument.

I read a stat that he'd retired more times in the 2 and half seasons of McLaren-Honda than he has in his entire career before that which is crazy and explains the moaning.

Ouch.

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967